Reid Duke and Justin Cohen both sat at 11-2 and needed a win to stay in Top 8 contention. Reid was playing a Black-Green midrange deck with Tireless Tracker as his main card advantage engine while Justin was on an innovative Red-Green ramp list with a suite of mana creatures including Deathcap Cultivator and Shaman of Forgotten Ways.

Reid won the die roll and chose to play Both players were quiet during shuffling and presenting. Reid mulliganed to six and Game 1 was underway.

Justin's played creature after creature which kept getting killed by Reid's removal spells while he continued to attack with Sylvan Advocate. Eventually there were six lands in play on Reid's side and Justin was on a pretty fast clock.

All Justin could follow up with was land, pass. Losing Nissa's Pilgrimage and his mana creatures caused him to not get anything off the ground and his large creatures were stuck in his hand. Justin fell to six life and needed to find something quickly before the Advocate destroyed him.

Finally Justin played a real threat, Woodland Bellower, which found him a Shaman of Forgotten Ways. Suddenly Justin had an army in front of him and has turned the corner. Reid drew a card and tanked for a while, then decided to cast Nissa, Vastwood Seer, find a Forest and transform Nissa. Nissa could only reveal a land and suddenly it was Reid who was under pressure. Shaman of Forgotten Ways threatened to cast most of Justin's hand.

“Twenty to six and three cards in hand?” asked Reid.

“All true.”

Justin summoned a Dragonlord Atarka which killed the transformed Nissa. Reid's follow up was Tireless Tracker, not enough to deal with Justin's army but at least it helped him get some card flow going.

Reid Dark Petiioned for Nissa's Renewal, going up to fifteen and netting him more lands and clues. With all the cards he was gaining from Tireless Tracker, he finally drew into his Seasons Past, refilling his hand. However none of the cards he returned were able to fight off Ulamog, and all he could do was cast Nissa's Renewal, finding zero lands (none were in his deck) but gaining enough life to not face lethal.

Reid used a flurry of removal spells to destroy most of Justin's non-Ulamog creatures, netting him a zombie for each one. These zombies were enough to finish off Justin's six life points and Reid took down Game 1.

The players had only eleven minutes on the clock as they shuffled up for Game 2 and neither player said a word during sideboarding. Game 2 was underway very quickly.

Reid dropped The Gitrog Monster onto the battlefield but that didn't stop Justin from attacking with his army of creatures. The players traded creatures and Reid found himself at only seven life after the exchange.